Collins Hume Blog

Many small businesses have previously treated the ATO as an overdraft or line of credit to fund their business when cash flow has been tight.

While this was never a great idea, it is now worse than ever to do this.

But why?

Firstly, until this year the ATO never reported your debt to the credit reporting agencies – but they do now, meaning that your credit rating can be adversely impacted by not paying your tax (and this includes your GST payments).

Secondly, most lenders are now asking you to provide a report from the ATO showing that you have been paying your liabilities promptly – this report routinely goes back 12 months. So if you pay late it will impact on your ability to obtain a loan for at least 12 months unless you have a really good reason.

The Australian Tax Office (ATO) has updated their guidelines on the tax treatment of cryptocurrencies, following community consultation in 2018.

The updated guidelines help you learn more about the tax implications of cryptocurrency, including the practical issues of exchanging one cryptocurrency for another and associated record-keeping requirements.

If you have purchased, traded or profited from the sale of cryptocurrency, you may have tax-related obligations of which they are unaware.

Tax treatment of cryptocurrencies

The term cryptocurrency is generally used to describe a digital asset in which encryption techniques are used to regulate the generation of additional units and verify transactions on a blockchain. Cryptocurrency generally operates independently of a central bank, central authority or government.

In Australia, around 34 million gift cards are sold each year with an estimated value of $2.5 billion. On average, an estimated $70 million is lost because of expiry dates.

Until recently, there was no national regulation for the minimum length of time a gift card should last. In late 2017, New South Wales introduced laws* requiring a minimum three year expiry period for gift cards sold in that state and South Australia was in the process of enacting laws, but no uniform standard applied across Australia.

Applying from 1 November 2019, new laws are in effect that introduce a regime for the regulation of gift cards including: